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I Know Some People Might Think It Odd - Unworthy Even - For Me To Have Written A Cookbook, But I Make No Apologies. The U.s. Poet Laureate Billy Collins Thought I Had Demeaned Myself By Writing Poetry For Hallmark Cards, But I Am The People's Poet So I Write For The People.

-Maya Angelou

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I Know Some People

Maya Angelou

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I Know Some People Might Think It Odd - Unworthy Even - For Me To Have Written A Cookbook, But I Make No Apologies. The U.s. Poet Laureate Billy Collins Thought I Had Demeaned Myself By Writing Poetry For Hallmark Cards, But I Am The People's Poet So I Write For The People.

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I Look At Some Of The Great Novelists, And I Think The Reason They Are Great Is That They're Telling The Truth. The Fact Is They're Using Made-up Names, Made-up People, Made-up Places, And Made-up Times, But They're Telling The Truth About The Human Being- What We Are Capable Of, What Makes Us Lose, Laugh, Weep, Fall Down, And Gnash Our Teeth And Wring Our Hands And Kill Each Other And Love Each Other.

The Sisters And Brothers That You Meet Give You The Materials Which Your Character Uses To Build Itself. It Is Said That Some People Are Born Great, Others Achieve It, Some Have It Thrust Upon Them. In Truth, The Ways In Which Your Character Is Built Have To Do With All Three Of Those. Those Around You, Those You Choose, And Those Who Choose You.

Let Choice Whisper In Your Ear And Love Murmur In Your Heart. Be Ready. Here Comes Life.

There's A World Of Difference Between Truth And Facts. Facts Can Obscure The Truth.

Courage Allows The Successful Woman To Fail - And To Learn Powerful Lessons From The Failure - So That In The End, She Didn't Fail At All.

I Don't Think There's Such A Thing As Autobiographical Fiction. If I Say It Happened, It Happened, Even If Only In My Mind.

I Did Then What I Knew How To Do. Now That I Know Better, I Do Better.

The Autobiographer Looks At Life Through The Lens Of His Or Her Own Life And Really Uses Herself Or Himself As The Jumping-off Place To Examine The Social Mores And The Economic And Political Climates. In A Way, The Autobiography Becomes History As Well As The Story Of One Person, For It Becomes The Story Of A Family Or The Story Of The State Or Nation.

Remember This: When You Cross My Doorstep, You Have Already Been Raised. With What You Have Learned...you Know The Difference Between Right And Wrong. Do Right. Don't Anybody Raise You From The Way You Have Been Raised. Know You Will Have To Make Adaptations, In Love, In Relationships, In Friends, In Society, In Work, But Don't Let Anybody Change Your Mind.

Lord Keep Your Arm Around My Shoulder And Your Hand Over My Mouth.

I Love A Hebrew National Hot Dog With An Ice-cold Corona - No Lime. If The Phone Rings, I Won't Answer Until I'm Done.

When My Grandmother Died, I Realized That Even If I Had Millions Of Dollars, I Couldn't Find Her Anywhere On Earth. My Next Thought Was That I Would Die. I Looked At My Life And Thought, "i'm Afraid To Die." I Concluded That Whether I Was Afraid Or Not, I Would Die. It Was One Of The Most Important Crossroads In My Life, Once I Realized That No Matter What, I Would Do This Thing, The Next Step Was To Think, "if I Am Going To Do The Most Difficult And Frightening Thing - Dying - Is It Possible That I Could Do Some Difficult And Impossible Things That Are Good?"

Impossible Things

You Have To Develop Ways So That You Can Take Up For Yourself, And Then You Take Up For Someone Else. And So Sooner Or Later, You Have Enough Courage To Really Stand Up For The Human Race And Say, 'i'm A Representative. '

In A Long Meter Hymn, A Singer - They Call It 'lays Out A Line.' And Then The Whole Church Joins In In Repeating That Line. And They Form A Wall Of Harmony So Tight, You Can't Wedge A Pin Between It.

Have Enough Courage To Trust Love One More Time And Always One More Time.

My Mother Is So Full Of Joy And Life. I Am Her Child. And That Is Better Than Being The Child Of Anyone Else In The World.

When I Passed Forty I Dropped Pretense, 'cause Men Like Women Who Got Some Sense.

If The Door Has Been Opened And I've Been Invited, Or If I'm Not Invited And I Somehow Know I'm Supposed To Go In There, I Put Myself Together And Go In, Praying All The While. I Try To Learn Something Before I Go In. I Try To Show Some Respect Of The Place I'm Going Into.

Its Not Where Your Dreams Take You, Its Where You Take Your Dreams.

I Try To See Every Day As A Celebration.

People Have To Feel Needed. Frequently, We Just Offer A Job And 'perks.' We Don't Always Offer People A Purpose. When People Feel There Is A Purpose And That They're Needed, There's Not Much Else To Do Except Let Them Do The Work.

The Real Difficulty Is To Overcome How You Think About Yourself. If We Don't Have That We Never Grow, We Never Learn, And Sure As Hell We Should Never Teach.

I'm Really Saddened By The Attempts To Separate And Polarize. This Is A Time When We Have Hungry People, People Out Of Work, And People Out Of Spirit. This Is A Time Where We Need To Uplift, Not To Separate.

Courage Allows The Successful Woman To Fail - And To Learn Powerful Lessons From The Failure - So That In The End, She Didn't Fail At All.

Most People Don't Grow Up. It's Too Damn Difficult. What Happens Is Most People Get Older.

If A Person - Any Human Being - Is Told Often Enough, "you Are Nothing. You Are Nothing. You Account For Nothing. You Count For Nothing. You Are Less Than A Human Being. I Have No Visibility Of You", The Person Finally Begins To Believe It.

Naturally, If You Love Somebody, You Do Want To See Their Face Every Now And Again, But That's Not A Condition Of Your Love. People Often Get Possession Mixed Up With Love, And They Say, "if You Really Loved Me, You Would Call Me." How - When Life Is Going On? I Think Of You All The Time, And The Thought Of You Always Lifts My Spirits. But I'm Not Right At The Phone!

Sometimes Guns Really Matter. Protecting Those Who Need Protection - Children, Women, Minorities In Rough Parts Of Town, Old Folks Living In Places Where Cops Aren't Nearby. Guns Are True Empowerment For The Powerless.

Every Person Needs To Take One Day Away. A Day In Which One Consciously Separates The Past From The Future.

I Liked To Write From The Time I Was About 12 Or 13. I Loved To Read. And Since I Only Spoke To My Brother, I Would Write Down My Thoughts. And I Think I Wrote Some Of The Worst Poetry West Of The Rockies. But By The Time I Was In My 20s, I Found Myself Writing Little Essays And More Poetry - Writing At Writing.

Let Me Tell So Much Truth. I Want To Tell The Truth In My Work. The Truth Will Lead Me To All.

Telling The Truth

I'm Here, And I Do My Best To Be Completely Centered At The Place I'm At, Then I Go Forward To The Next Place.

Do The Best You Can Until You Know Better. Then When You Know Better, Do Better.

I Think I Know That I Deserve Better. And So I Try For Better. I'm Never So Put Off That I Would Ever Walk Out Of A Place Not Having Tried The Best I Could.

We Need Joy As We Need Air. We Need Love As We Need Water. We Need Each Other As We Need The Earth We Share.

A Woman In Harmony With Her Spirit Is Like A River Flowing.

You Have To Develop Ways So That You Can Take Up For Yourself, And Then You Take Up For Someone Else. And So Sooner Or Later, You Have Enough Courage To Really Stand Up For The Human Race And Say, 'i'm A Representative. '

You Can't Use Up Creativity, Creative Thinking Builds On Itself And Increases The Creativity Of The Thinker...you Can't Use Up Creativity. The More You Use, The More You Have.

She Comprehended The Perversity Of Life, That In The Struggle Lies The Joy.

When The Storyteller Tells The Truth, She Reminds Us That Human Beings Are More Alike Than Unalike... A Story Is What It's Like To Be A Human Being-to Be Knocked Down And To Miraculously Arise. Each One Of Us Has Arisen, Awakened. We Do Rise.

You Have To Have Courage To Love Somebody. Because You Risk Everything. Everything.

When Women Take Care Of Their Health They Become Their Own Best Friend.

Life Is Pure Adventure, And The Sooner We Realize That, The Quicker We Will Be Able To Treat Life As Art.

Life Loves The Liver Of It.

No Human Being Can Be More Human Than Another Human Being. I Liberate You From My Ignorance.

African American

The Intensity With Which Young People Live Demands That They "blank Out" As Often As Possible.

I Live In An Atmosphere Of Music.

The Real Difficulty Is To Overcome How You Think About Yourself. If We Don't Have That We Never Grow, We Never Learn, And Sure As Hell We Should Never Teach.

There Are Those Who Say That Poets Should Use Her And His Art To Change The World. I'd Agree With That, But I Think Everybody Should Do That. I Think The Chef And The Baker And The Candlestick Maker - I Think Everybody Should Be Hoping To Make It A Better World.

I Always Knew From That Moment, From The Time I Found Myself At Home In That Little Segregated Library In The South, All The Way Up Until I Walked Up The Steps Of The New York City Library, I Always Felt, In Any Town, If I Can Get To A Library, I'll Be Okay. It Really Helped Me As A Child, And That Never Left Me. So I Have A Special Place For Every Library, In My Heart Of Hearts.

It's So Tedious Writing Cookbooks Or Writing The Recipes Because I've Never Been Much Of A Measurer. But To Write A Book, You Have To Measure Everything.

Live Life As If It Were Created Just For You.

Bitterness Is Like Cancer. It Eats Upon The Host. But Anger Is Like Fire. It Burns It All Clean.

I, With Millions Of Other Americans, Have The Same Dream Martin Luther King Jr. Had; When I Wake Up I Wish Some Of The Things I Dreamt Would Be True. I Wish That Little Black And White Boys And Girls Would Hold Hands Without Being Shocked At Their Nearness To Each Other And Say In A Natural Way, "we Have Overcome.

I Have Found That Among Its Other Benefits, Giving Liberates The Soul Of The Giver.

It Is This Belief In A Power Larger Than Myself And Other Than Myself Which Allows Me To Venture Into The Unknown And Even The Unknowable.

I Like To Speak On Matters Which Matter To Human Beings, And Almost Everything Matters To Human Beings.

Love Life. Engage In It. Give It All You've Got. Love It With A Passion Because Life Truly Does Give Back, Many Times Over, What You Put Into It.

We All Should Know That Diversity Makes For A Rich Tapestry, And We Must Understand That All The Threads Of The Tapestry Are Equal In Value No Matter What Their Color.

I Encourage You To Live With Life. Be Courageous, Adventurous. Give Us A Tomorrow, More Than We Deserve.

"baby, You Know?" My Mother Once Said To Me. "i Think You're The Greatest Woman I've Ever Met - And I'm Not Including My Mother Or Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt In That." She Said, "you Are Very Intelligent And You're Very Kind, And Those Two Qualities Do Not Often Go Together." Then She Went Across The Street And Got In Her Car, And I Went The Other Way Down To The Streetcar. I Thought, "suppose She's Right. She's Intelligent - And She's Too Mean To Lie." You See, A Parent Has The Chance - And Maybe The Responsibility - To Liberate Her Child. And My Mom Had Liberated Me When I Was 17.

I'm Considered Wise, And Sometimes I See Myself As Knowing. Most Of The Time, I See Myself As Wanting To Know. And I See Myself As A Very Interested Person. I've Never Been Bored In My Life.

Let The Brain Go To Work, Let It Meet The Heart And You Will Be Able To Forgive.

If It Is True That A Chain Is Only As Strong As Its Weakest Link, Isn't It Also True A Society Is Only As Healthy As Its Sickest Citizen And Only As Wealthy As Its Most Deprived?

There Is An Intimate Laughter To Be Found Only Among Friends

Inspirational Friendship

The Problem I Have With Haters Is That They See My Glory, But They Don't Know My Story.

There Is An Amazing Something In The American Psyche Which Speaks About Courage, And It Says, 'yes I Can,' ... Yes, We Will Overcome It All Because We Have The Spirit To Do So.

Sometimes Guns Really Matter. Protecting Those Who Need Protection - Children, Women, Minorities In Rough Parts Of Town, Old Folks Living In Places Where Cops Aren't Nearby. Guns Are True Empowerment For The Powerless.

We Are Only As Blind As We Want To Be.

Try To Be A Rainbow In Someone's Cloud.

Lift Up Your Eyes Upon This Day Breaking For You. Give Birth Again To The Dream. Women, Children, Men, Take It Into The Palms Of Your Hands. Mold It Into The Shape Of Your Most Private Need. Sculpt It Into The Image Of Your Most Public Self. Lift Up Your Hearts Each New Hour Holds New Chances For A New Beginning.

I'm Grateful To Intelligent People. That Doesn't Mean Educated. That Doesn't Mean Intellectual. I Mean Really Intelligent. What Black Old People Used To Call 'mother Wit' Means Intelligence That You Had In Your Mother's Womb. That's What You Rely On. You Know What's Right To Do.

Once You Appreciate One Of Your Blessings, One Of Your Senses, Your Sense Of Hearing, Then You Begin To Respect The Sense Of Seeing And Touching And Tasting, You Learn To Respect All The Senses.

Elimination Of Illiteracy Is As Serious An Issue To Our History As The Abolition Of Slavery.

Abolition Of Slavery

I Find In My Poetry And Prose The Rhythms And Imagery Of The Best - I Mean, When I'm At My Best - Of The Good Southern Black Preachers. The Lyricism Of The Spirituals And The Directness Of Gospel Songs And The Mystery Of Blues Are In My Music Or In My Poetry And Prose, Or I Missed Everything.

I Would Ask Every Man And Every Woman Who's Had The Blessing Of Having Children, 'would You Deny Your Son Or Your Daughter The Ecstasy Of Finding Someone To Love?' To Love Someone Takes A Lot Of Courage. So How Much More Is One Challenged When The Love Is Of The Same Sex And The Laws Say, 'i Forbid You From Loving This Person'?

The Holy Spirit Upon My Left Leads My Feet Without Ceasing Into The Camp Of The Righteous And Into The Tents Of The Free.

The Most Important Thing Is To Dare.

Important Things

When I Look Back, I Am So Impressed Again With The Life-giving Power Of Literature. If I Were A Young Person Today, Trying To Gain A Sense Of Myself In The World, I Would Do That Again By Reading, Just As I Did When I Was Young.

Pretty Women Wonder Where My Secret Lies. I'm Not Cute Or Built To Suit A Fashion Model's Size But When I Start To Tell Them, They Think I'm Telling Lies. I Say, It's In The Reach Of My Arms The Span Of My Hips, The Stride Of My Step, The Curl Of My Lips. I'm A Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, That's Me.

A Rose By Any Other Name May Smell As Sweet, But A Woman Called By A Devaluing Name Will Only Be Weakened By The Misnomer.

We Agreed That Great Men And Women Should Be Forced To Live As Long As Possible. The Reverence They Enjoyed Was A Life Sentence, Which They Could Neither Revoke Nor Modify.

I Do Not Believe That The Accident Of Birth Makes People Sisters And Brothers. It Makes Them Siblings. Gives Them Mutuality Of Parentage. Sisterhood And Brotherhood Are Conditions People Have To Work At. It's A Serious Matter. You Compromise, You Give, You Take, You Stand Firm, And You're Relentless...and It Is An Investment. Sisterhood Means If You Happen To Be In Burma And I Happen To Be In San Diego And I'm Married To Someone Who Is Very Jealous And You're Married To Somebody Who Is Very Possessive, If You Call Me In The Middle Of The Night, I Have To Come.

The Only Way You Can Be A Mark Is If You Want Something For Nothing. If You're Greedy, You're Set Up.

My Doctor Told Me That I Really Should Lose Some Weight. "you're Mildly Obese," He Said. And I Thought, "well, Who Couldn't Afford To Lose 20 Or 30 Pounds?" He Said, "well, A Person In Your Category." I Said, "what Is That Category, Doctor?" He Said, "well, You're What I Call Upwardly Middle Aged." And I Said, "i Forgive You For Everything."

Hope For The Best, Be Prepared For The Worse. Life Is Shocking, But You Must Never Appear To Be Shocked. For No Matter How Bad It Is It Could Be Worse And No Matter How Good It Is It Could Be Better.

Hoping For The Best

If I'm The People's Poet, Then I Ought To Be In People's Hands - And, I Hope, In Their Heart.

The Plague Of Racism Is Insidious, Entering Into Our Minds As Smoothly And Quietly And Invisibly As Floating Airborne Microbes Enter Into Our Bodies To Find Lifelong Purchase In Our Bloodstreams.

I've Learned That People Will Forget What You Said, People Will Forget What You Did, But People Will Never Forget How You Made Them Feel.

It Is Impossible To Struggle For Civil Rights, Equal Rights For Blacks, Without Including Whites. Because Equal Rights, Fair Play, Justice, Are All Like The Air: We All Have It, Or None Of Us Has It. That Is The Truth Of It.

Blacks Concede That Hurrawing, Jibing, Jiving, Signifying, Disrespecting, Cursing, Even Outright Insults Might Be Acceptable Under Particular Conditions, But Aspersions Cast Against One's Family Call For Immediate Attack.

Lift Up Your Eyes Upon This Day Breaking For You. Give Birth Again To The Dream. Women, Children, Men, Take It Into The Palms Of Your Hands. Mold It Into The Shape Of Your Most Private Need. Sculpt It Into The Image Of Your Most Public Self. Lift Up Your Hearts Each New Hour Holds New Chances For A New Beginning.

Hope For The Best, Be Prepared For The Worse. Life Is Shocking, But You Must Never Appear To Be Shocked. For No Matter How Bad It Is It Could Be Worse And No Matter How Good It Is It Could Be Better.

Hoping For The Best

I Have Risked Everything To Tell The Truth. Tell The Truth

Telling The Truth

I've Learned That Whenever I Decide Something With An Open Heart, I Usually Make The Right Decision. I've Learned That Even When I Have Pains, I Don't Have To Be One. I've Learned That Every Day You Should Reach Out And Touch Someone. People Love A Warm Hug, Or Just A Friendly Pat On The Back. I've Learned That I Still Have A Lot To Learn.

We Really Are 15 Countries, And It's Remarkable That Each Of Us Thinks We Represent The Real America. The Midwesterner In Kansas, The Black American In Durham - Both Are Certain They Are The Real American.

Every Person Needs To Take One Day Away. A Day In Which One Consciously Separates The Past From The Future. Jobs, Family, Employers, And Friends Can Exist One Day Without Any One Of Us, And If Our Egos Permit Us To Confess, They Could Exist Eternally In Our Absence. Each Person Deserves A Day Away In Which No Problems Are Confronted, No Solutions Searched For. Each Of Us Needs To Withdraw From The Cares Which Will Not Withdraw From Us.

The Best Candy Shop A Child Can Be Left Alone In, Is The Library

We Must Create A Climate Where People Agree That Human Beings Are More Alike Than Unalike. The Only Way To Do That Is Through Education.

I'm A Spring Leaf Trembling In Anticipation.

You Forgive Yourself For Every Failure Because You Are Trying To Do The Right Thing. God Knows That And You Know It. Nobody Else May Know It.

There Were People Who Went To Sleep Last Night, Poor And Rich And White And Black, But They Will Never Wake Again. And Those Dead Folks Would Give Anything At All For Just Five Minutes Of This Weather Or Ten Minutes Of Plowing. So You Watch Yourself About Complaining. What You're Supposed To Do When You Don't Like A Thing Is Change It. If You Can't Change It, Change The Way You Think About It.

Every Experience Shapes Your Writing, Being Stuck In A Car On A Lonely Bridge, Or Dancing At A Prom, Being The It Girl On The Beach, All Of Those Things Influence Your Life, They Influence How You Write, And The Topics You Choose To Write About.

Difficult Is A Far Cry From Impossible. The Distance Between These Two Lies Hope. Hope And Fear Cannot Occupy The Same Space At The Same Time. Invite One To Stay.

When I Try To Describe Myself To God I Say, 'lord, Remember Me? Black? Female? Six-foot Tall? The Writer?' And I Almost Always Get God's Attention.

Does My Sexiness Upset You? Does It Come As A Surprise That I Dance Like I've Got Diamonds At The Meeting Of My Thighs?

For A Person Who Grew Up In The '30s And '40s In The Segregated South, With So Many Doors Closed Without Explanation To Me, Libraries And Books Said, 'here I Am, Read Me.' Over Time I Have Learned I Am At My Best Around Books.

I Refuse To Allow Any Man-made Differences To Separate Me From Any Other Human Beings.

When Women Take Care Of Their Health They Become Their Own Best Friend.

All Great Acheivements Require Time.

I've Learned That Making A 'living' Is Not The Same Thing As 'making A Life'.

I Have Great Respect For The Past.

I'm Convinced That I'm A Child Of God. That's Wonderful, Exhilarating, Liberating, Full Of Promise. But The Burden Which Goes Along With That Is, I'm Convinced That Everybody Is A Child Of God. . . . I Weep A Lot. I Thank God I Laugh A Lot, Too. The Main Thing In One's Own Private World Is To Try To Laugh As Much As You Cry.

I Have A Feeling That I Make A Very Good Friend, And I'm A Good Mother, And A Good Sister, And A Good Citizen. I Am Involved In Life Itself - All Of It. And I Have A Lot Of Energy And A Lot Of Nerve.

We Are The Victims Of The World's Most Comprehensive Robbery. Life Demands A Balance. It's All Right If We Do A Little Robbing Now.

I Would Ask Every Man And Every Woman Who's Had The Blessing Of Having Children, 'would You Deny Your Son Or Your Daughter The Ecstasy Of Finding Someone To Love?' To Love Someone Takes A Lot Of Courage. So How Much More Is One Challenged When The Love Is Of The Same Sex And The Laws Say, 'i Forbid You From Loving This Person'?

You May Not Remember What A Person Said To You, You May Not Remember What A Person Did To You, But You Will Never Forget How A Person Made You Feel!

Hope Does Not Take Away Your Problems. It Can Lift You Above Them.

If I Insist On Being Pessimistic, There Is Always Tomorrow. Today I Am Blessed.

Timidity Makes A Person Modest. It Makes Him Or Her Say, "i'm Not Worthy Of Being Written Up In The Record Of Deeds In Heaven Or On Earth." Timidity Keeps People From Their Good. They Are Afraid To Say, "yes, I Deserve It."

There Is No Greater Agony Than Bearing An Untold Story Inside You.

I Note The Obvious Differences Between Each Sort And Type, But We Are More Alike, My Friends, Than We Are Unalike.

The Most Noble Cause Known To Man Is The Liberation Of The Human Mind And Spirit.

The Human Heart Is So Delicate And Sensitive That It Always Needs Some Tangible Encouragement To Prevent It From Faltering In Its Labour.

We Write For The Same Reason That We Walk, Talk, Climb Mountains Or Swim The Oceans — Because We Can. We Have Some Impulse Within Us That Makes Us Want To Explain Ourselves To Other Human Beings. That’s Why We Paint, That’s Why We Dare To Love Someone- Because We Have The Impulse To Explain Who We Are. Not Just How Tall We Are, Or Thin… But Who We Are Internally… Perhaps Even Spiritually. There’s Something, Which Impels Us To Show Our Inner-souls. The More Courageous We Are, The More We Succeed In Explaining What We Know.

All Riddles Are Blues, / And All Blues Are Sad, / And I'm Only Mentioning / Some Blues I've Had.

What I Try To Do Is Write. I May Write For Two Weeks ‘the Cat Sat On The Mat, That Is That, Not A Rat,’.... And It Might Be Just The Most Boring And Awful Stuff. But I Try. When I’m Writing, I Write. And Then It’s As If The Muse Is Convinced That I’m Serious And Says, ‘okay. Okay. I’ll Come.

The White American Man Makes The White American Woman Maybe Not Superfluous But Just A Little Kind Of Decoration. Not Really Important To Turning Around The Wheels Of The State. Well The Black American Woman Has Never Been Able To Feel That Way. No Black American Man At Any Time In Our History In The United States Has Been Able To Feel That He Didn't Need That Black Woman Right Against Him, Shoulder To Shoulder-in That Cotton Field, On The Auction Block, In The Ghetto, Wherever.

I Know That When I Pray, Something Wonderful Happens. Not Just To The Person Or Persons For Whom I'm Praying, But Also Something Wonderful Happens To Me. I'm Grateful That I'm Heard.

It Is Only Out Of Ignorance That People Are Cruel, Because They Really Don't Think It Will Come Back.

Don't Let Anybody Raise You. You've Been Raised.

Love Costs All We Are And Will Ever Be. Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free. A Brave And Startling Truth.

If You Want To Liberate Someone, Love Them.not Be In Love With Them - That's Dangerous. If You're In Love With Your Children, You're In Their Lives All The Time. Leave Them Alone! Let Them Grow And Make Some Mistakes. Tell Them, "you Can Come Home. My Arms Are Here - And My Mouth Is Too." When You Really Love Them, You Don't Want To Possess Them. You Don't Say, "i Love You And I Want You Here With Me."

I Am A Woman Phenomenally, Phenomenal Woman That Is Your Grandmother, That Is Your Mother, That Is Your Sister, That Is You And That Is Me.

Phenomenal Woman

Indeed We Have Souls. And If A Person Is Religious, I Think It's Good, It Helps You A Bit. But If You're Not, At Least You Can Have The Sense That There Is A Condition Inside You Which Looks At The Stars With Amazement And Awe. That Listens To Water With A River Flowing, Or Water Falling In Rain And Is Lifted Up By That And Listens To A Wonderful Singer, Wonderful Musicians, Listens To Maybe Duke Ellington Or Frank Sinatra Or Listens To Odetta And Mary J. Blige. Yes, And Thinks Whoo! And Thinks, Yes, Hmm, All Right Now. My Soul Has Been Washed. I Feel Better, I Feel Stronger.

I Get Up In The Morning, And I'm Reluctant To Turn On The Television.

I Live In An Atmosphere Of Music.

Love Is Many Things. It Is Varied. One Thing Love Is Not, Is Unsure.

Life Loves The Person Who Dares To Live It.

We, Unaccustomed To Courage Exiles From Delight Live Coiled In Shells Of Loneliness Until Love Leaves Its High Holy Temple And Comes Into Our Sight To Liberate Us Into Life. Love Arrives And In Its Train Come Ecstasies Old Memories Of Pleasure Ancient Histories Of Pain. Yet If We Are Bold, Love Strikes Away The Chains Of Fear From Our Souls. We Are Weaned From Our Timidity In The Flush Of Love's Light We Dare Be Brave And Suddenly We See That Love Costs All We Are And Will Ever Be. Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free.

I Sustain Myself With The Love Of Family.

I'm Grateful To Be An American. I Am Grateful That We Can Be Angry At The Terrorist Assault And At The Same Time Be Intelligent Enough Not To Hold A Grudge Against Every Arab And Every Muslim.

No Matter What Happens, Or How Bad It Seems Today, Life Does Go On, And It Will Be Better Tomorrow.

People Are Too Busy Putting Things Under Microscopes And So Forth. Creativity Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts.

As A Nurse, We Have The Opportunity To Heal The Heart, Mind, Soul And Body Of Our Patients, Their Families And Ourselves. They May Not Remember Your Name But They Will Never Forget The Way You Made Them Feel.

The Ship Of My Life May Or May Not Be Sailing On Calm And Amiable Seas. The Challenging Days Of My Existence May Or May Not Be Bright And Promising. Stormy Or Sunny Days, Glorious Or Lonely Nights, I Maintain An Attitude Of Gratitude. If I Insist On Being Pessimistic, There Is Always Tomorrow. Today I Am Blessed.

I Agree With Balzac And 19th-century Writers, Black And White, Who Say, 'i Write For Money.' Yes, I Think Everybody Should Be Paid Handsomely; I Insist On It, And I Pay People Who Work For Me, Or With Me, Handsomely.

Black And White

To Grow Up Is To Stop Putting Blame On Parents.

For Africa To Me... Is More Than A Glamorous Fact. It Is A Historical Truth. No Man Can Know Where He Is Going Unless He Knows Exactly Where He Has Been And Exactly How He Arrived At His Present Place.

I Walk Into A Room Just As Cool As You Please, And To A Man, The Fellows Stand Or Fall Down On Their Knees.

In The Fifties, You Have Your Beauty As A Treat. I Thought That Until I Hit The Sixties.in Your Sixties, Life Decides To Reward You With Certain Kinds Of Profound Appreciation, So That People Name Their Children And Schools And Libraries After You! And You Still Have Your Sexuality And Your Sensuality. If You Want Your Sexuality, You Still Have It.

Take A Month And Show Some Kindness For The Folks Who Thought That Blindness Was An Illness That Affected Eyes Alone.

When I Passed Forty I Dropped Pretense, 'cause Men Like Women Who Got Some Sense.

I Would Welcome A Friendship With Lynne Hinton. I Would Welcome An Invitation To Sit Down At Her Table, But Mostly I Would Welcome Her Next Book.

Life Loves To Be Taken By The Lapel And Told: 'i'm With You Kid. Let's Go.'

I Want To Thank You, Lord, For Life And All That's In It. Thank You For The Day And For The Hour, And The Minute.

To Take A Few Nouns, And A Few Pronouns, And Adverbs And Adjectives, And Put Them Together, Ball Them Up, And Throw Them Against The Wall To Make Them Bounce. That's What Norman Mailer Did. That's What James Baldwin Did, And Joan Didion Did, And That's What I Do - That's What I Mean To Do.

Love Recognizes No Barriers. It Jumps Hurdles, Leaps Fences, Penetrates Walls To Arrive At Its Destination Full Of Hope.

Moderation In All Things. And Even Moderation In Moderation. Don't Get Too Much Moderation, You Know?

If You Must Look Back, Do So Forgivingly. If You Will Look Forward, Do So Prayerfully. But The Wisest Course Would Be To Be Present In The Present Gratefully.

We Will Sometimes Have Defeats In Life But You Can Have Defeats Without Being Defeated, You Could Fail Without Being A Failure. When You See Failure And Defeats As Merely Part Of The Process To Get To When.

We, Unaccustomed To Courage Exiles From Delight Live Coiled In Shells Of Loneliness Until Love Leaves Its High Holy Temple And Comes Into Our Sight To Liberate Us Into Life. Love Arrives And In Its Train Come Ecstasies Old Memories Of Pleasure Ancient Histories Of Pain. Yet If We Are Bold, Love Strikes Away The Chains Of Fear From Our Souls. We Are Weaned From Our Timidity In The Flush Of Love's Light We Dare Be Brave And Suddenly We See That Love Costs All We Are And Will Ever Be. Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free.

I Am Overwhelmed By The Grace And Persistence Of My People.

I'm Working At Trying To Be A Christian, And That's Serious Business. It's Like Trying To Be A Good Jew, A Good Muslim, A Good Buddhist, A Good Shintoist, A Good Zoroastrian, A Good Friend, A Good Lover, A Good Mother, A Good Buddy: It's Serious Business.

I’m Grateful For Being Here, For Being Able To Think, For Being Able To See, For Being Able To Taste, For Appreciating Love – For Knowing That It Exists In A World So Rife With Vulgarity, With Brutality And Violence, And Yet Love Exists. I’m Grateful To Know That It Exists.

Facts Can Obscure The Truth.

When I Want To Think About What Would Be The Right Thing To Do, The Fair Thing To Do, The Wise Thing To Do, I Can Just Think Of My Grandmother. I Can Always Hear Her Say, "now Sister, You Know What's Right. Just Do Right!"

Today, The First & Last Of Every Tree/ Speaks To Humankind. Come To Me, Here Beside The River.

I Work Very Hard, And I Play Very Hard. I'm Grateful For Life. And I Live It - I Believe Life Loves The Liver Of It. I Live It.

At One Time, You Could Sit On The Rue De La Paix In Paris Or At The Habima Theater In Tel Aviv Or In Medina And You Could See A Person Come In, Black, White, It Didn't Matter. You Said, 'that's An American' Because There's A Readiness To Smile And To Talk To People.

I Am Convinced That Most People Do Not Grow Up...we Marry And Dare To Have Children And Call That Growing Up. I Think What We Do Is Mostly Grow Old. We Carry Accumulation Of Years In Our Bodies, And On Our Faces, But Generally Our Real Selves, The Children Inside, Are Innocent And Shy As Magnolias.

While The Rest Of The World Has Been Improving Technology, Ghana Has Been Improving The Quality Of Man's Humanity To Man.

My Great Hope Is To Laugh As Much As I Cry; To Get My Work Done And Try To Love Somebody And Have The Courage To Accept The Love In Return.

You Can Ask Goodness In, Show It How Much You Like It, Make Room For It. And It Says, "oh, I Like This Place, I Think I'll Stay Here." Which Is Why People Go Into One House And Say, "i Want To Take My Shoes Off." At Another House, No Matter How Beautiful It Is, They Might Say, "hmm, I Can't Stay."

Only Equals Make Friends, Every Other Relationship Is Contrived And Off Balance.

My Life Has Been Long, And Believing That Life Loves The Liver Of It, I Have Dared To Try Many Things, Sometimes Trembling, But Daring Still.

Talent Is Like Electricity. We Don't Understand Electricity. We Use It.

Always In The Black Spirituals There's That Promise That Things Are Going To Be Better, By And By.

Find A Beautiful Piece Of Art. If You Fall In Love With Van Gogh Or Matisse Or John Oliver Killens, Or If You Fall Love With The Music Of Coltrane, The Music Of Aretha Franklin, Or The Music Of Chopin - Find Some Beautiful Art And Admire It, And Realize That That Was Created By Human Beings Just Like You, No More Human, No Less.

Falling In Love

I Read The Bible To Myself; I'll Take Any Translation, Any Edition, And Read It Aloud, Just To Hear The Language, Hear The Rhythm, And Remind Myself How Beautiful English Is.

When Was The Last Time Anyone Ever Told You How Important You Are?

Develop Enough Courage So That You Can Stand Up For Yourself And Then Stand Up For Somebody Else.

I Will Look After You And I Will Look After Anybody You Say Needs To Be Looked After, Any Way You Say. I Am Here. I Brought My Whole Self To You. I Am Your Mother.

My Encouragement To You Is To Go Tomorrow To The Library.

I Would Say You Might Encounter Many Defeats But You Must Never Be Defeated, Ever. In Fact, It Might Even Be Necessary To Confront Defeat. It Might Be Necessary, To Get Over It, All The Way Through It, And Go On. I Would Teach Her To Laugh A Lot. Laugh A Lot At The - And The Silliest Things And Be Very, Very Serious. I'd Teach Her To Love Life, I Can Bet You That.

Words Mean More Than What Is Set Down On Paper. It Takes The Human Voice To Infuse Them With Deeper Meaning.

I Am Convinced That Most People Do Not Grow Up ... Our Real Selves, The Children Inside, Are Still Innocent And Shy As Magnolias.

When We Find Someone Who Is Brave, Fun, Intelligent, And Loving, We Have To Thank The Universe.

My Great Blessing Is My Son, But I Have Daughters. I Have White Ones And Black Ones And Fat Ones And Thin Ones And Pretty Ones And Plain. I Have Gay Ones And Straight. I Have Daughters. I Have Asian Ones, I Have Jewish Ones, I Have Muslim Ones.

People Will Never Forget How You Made Them Feel.

There Are Some Nights When Sleep Plays Coy, Aloof And Disdainful. And All The Wiles That I Employ To Win Its Service To My Side Are Useless As Wounded Pride, And Much More Painful.

You Want Me To Do Something... Tell Me I Can't Do It.

Motivational Workout

This Conference ? Of, For And About Women ? Is, In Itself, A Rainbow In The Clouds. When Numerous Women Come Together And Show That They Care, Not Only For Themselves But Also For Each Other, That Is The Occasion When A Rainbow Is Shining Down On Somebody Else.

Surviving Is Important. Thriving Is Elegant.

Strong Women- Precious Jewels All- Their Humanness Is Evident In Their Accessibility. We Are Able To Enter Into The Spirit Of These Women And Rejoice In Their Warmth And Courage.

If Somebody Is Really Trying To Take Your Head Off With A Baseball Bat - I Don't Know How Long You're Supposed To Stand There And Turn The Other Cheek, So He Or She Can Get A Better Angle At Taking Your Head Off.

Eating Is So Intimate. It's Very Sensual. When You Invite Someone To Sit At Your Table And You Want To Cook For Them, You're Inviting A Person Into Your Life.

It Is Sad But True That Sometimes We Need The Tragedy To Help Us To See How Human We Are And How We Are More Alike Than We Are Different.

I Do Hope That Young Men And Women Will Start To Think For Themselves And Start To Take Responsibility For Their Own Thoughts.

I Know That You That You May Encounter Many Defeats, But You Must Not Be Defeated. If You Accept That You Have Been Defeated, You Give Power To The Force That Is Trying To Defeat You.

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Richard Dean Anderson

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